Two Senators forced out after separate hits from Oliver Ekman-Larsson

From Ottawa's side, that's the whole story.

This wasn't one messy collision in a heated game. It was two Senators leaving the action after separate hits involving the same Toronto defenceman.

The Giroux sequence is the one that will get the most attention.

The clip making the rounds shows Giroux driven dangerously from behind into the glass, and that's the kind of play that always drags a spotlight with it.

Then came the Dennis Gilbert hit, and that one only added fuel. On the replay, it looks like Oliver Ekman-Larsson comes in hard, and the visual has people asking whether he leaves his feet on contact.

For the Senators, the damage goes beyond the scoreboard.

Losing Giroux's calm and Gilbert's depth in the same game is the kind of swing that wrecks a bench, especially against a rival that already plays heavy.

Ottawa coach Travis Green now has two headaches at once: the health of two players and the fallout from a game that got away from the hockey itself.

The case for supplemental discipline starts with the Giroux hit.

If the league views it as contact from behind that rides up high, Ekman-Larsson could be looking at more than an in-game penalty.

The Gilbert play muddies things in a different way.

Even if the league treats it as a separate hockey play, the fact that a second Senators player went down after another hard shot from the same player will matter in the conversation.

That's where Craig Berube's club could get squeezed.

Once two players are hurt in one game by one defenceman, the standard shifts from isolated incident to pattern inside a single night.

From the Senators' point of view, that's the tough break.

Giroux is one of the club's steadiest veterans, Gilbert brings bite on the blue line, and both were dragged into the same ugly story.

So yes, Oliver Ekman-Larsson could be facing supplemental discipline. From Ottawa's side, it would not feel like a stretch. It would feel earned.